Daniel Palleros — Teaching Statement 2000-01
Lecturer, Chemistry

Dr. Gomez was a very busy man. He didn't have time to answer stupid questions. And any question that didn't include the word "soccer" was flat-out stupid. In a country where soccer is not just a national pastime but it has been elevated to the status of a folk religion, everybody is expected to have an opinion on the latest game. Even though I have always had little interest in the fate of a ball followed by a foot, I did my share of pointless discussions about goalies and forwards. But when it came to Dr. Gomez's case, I couldn't understand what soccer had to do with chemistry. Dr. Gomez was my first college chemistry instructor, and in retrospect, the worst teacher I ever had. I owe a lot to him.

In one semester Dr. Gomez taught me all the things I shouldn't be if someday I wanted to be a teacher: impatient, unprepared, uninvolved, rude, and biased. I was so disheartened with my first learning experience in college that I tried to find answers in the most unlikely places: libraries and bookstores. One day, browsing one of Buenos Aires's bookstores I came across a book called Students without Teachers. The Crisis in the University. It was an import from the United States that I couldn't afford to buy or read. My pocket was underdeveloped and so was my English. Although I didn't buy the book, the sole existence of such a title made a big impression on me. All of the sudden I wasn't alone. The problem was bigger than Dr. Gomez's general chemistry laboratories. The title conveyed the idea that thousands of students in far-away and remote places were probably as demoralized as I was by teachers as bad as Dr. Gomez. This finding didn't ease my frustration but was instrumental in putting things in perspective.

I knew back then that I wanted to be a teacher. Since my early childhood I had a compulsion to teach. A newly learned concept was often turned inside out and explained, not always with glittering results, to a captive audience of cousins and friends. But it was during my freshman year in college when I realized that if I was going to be a teacher, college would be my boot camp. I would use every bit of my undergraduate experience to become a good chemistry teacher.

As the semesters went by, the memories of my first term in college faded to the background thanks to many dedicated and inspiring teachers. Being a college teacher in the 1970's wasn't easy, especially in a place like Argentina that was in a state of constant social turmoil. In those years, when the university was the battle ground of factional parties attempting to gain political control, I realized how much power teachers actually have. As a student I learned to distrust those teachers that used the classroom as a pulpit to foster their own agendas. The difference between a teacher and a preacher became clear to me. I learned back then that the best gift that teachers can bring to their students is the certainty that they are not the safekeepers of the truth. Nobody is. Good teachers create an atmosphere of openness and free thinking where new ideas flourish.

I began my teaching career by tutoring my classmates. In a society where grades are absolute and the concept of curving is just a fleeting notion grasped from Hollywood movies, students are not in competition with one another. In such an environment helping a classmate is not only a dignified activity but will never turn against the helper. I took pride in helping my classmates. I would write overly detailed answers to the assigned problems, which in our college system were never turned in for grading, with footnotes and cross-references knowing that many of my classmates would borrow them and use them as study guides (no published study guides were available to us back then). Solving a set of problems that normally would take a couple of hours became a whole-day activity, but for some reason I didn't mind. Again, that compulsion to unravel and share that teaching is, took over me. My classmates were very grateful and so was I.

I knew at some level that I was preparing myself for future challenges. A year ago my first book Experimental Organic Chemistry (Wiley, New York) came out. This textbook is the crystallization of many years of researching the best ways to teach the organic chemistry laboratory. Writing this thirty-four-chapter book gave me as much pleasure as working on those unofficial study guides back when I was an undergraduate.

Before graduation from the University of Buenos Aires, I was offered a position as a course assistant in organic chemistry. It was my first paid job and it took me a while to get used to the idea that I was being paid to do something that I enjoyed so much. I have been teaching organic chemistry ever since and in many ways each day is like my very first. I still get butterflies in my stomach when at the beginning of each quarter I have to face a new audience. No matter how many times I have taught a given subject, I always go over my notes the day before and make a mental picture of how the lecture would flow. I review the analogies that I would bring, the examples that I would explain, and the questions that I would pose. I found the hard way that the most spontaneous lecture is the lecture well rehearsed.

Organic chemistry is considered a difficult subject. Unlike any other course that the students take in college, it requires a deep understanding of abstract concepts coupled with a knowledge of a new vocabulary where the words are complex reactions. To be proficient in this new language the students must go beyond the simple memorization of reactions and understand them at the electronic level. My job is to show my students that in the middle of all this work lies something of extraordinary beauty. I believe that we see beauty only in those things that we understand or can relate to. It follows then, that if I expect my students to see the beauty of organic chemistry, I should make every conceivable effort to make it as clear and logical as possible. I do this by building each step carefully and by adding new layers on pre-existing foundations only. The process is arduous and the students often get frustrated because they don't always see instantaneous results. I teach them to be patient and this is probably one of the most important lessons they can learn in the sciences. Eventually, many of them (I would like to believe, most of them) come to appreciate the beauty of organic chemistry. And when this happens, they know they have discovered something that was dormant inside of them.

I learned over the years that teaching is more than unraveling and sharing. Good teachers help their students find out what they are made of. A good teacher is not necessarily the one who inspires his students to follow him, but the one who helps them see the gifts they have inside. A good teacher never leads. A good teacher opens doors and lets the students find their way.

I teach a variable number of courses each year, depending on our department's needs. At UCSC I have been teaching the organic chemistry laboratories since 1987. This includes courses such as Chemistry 7L, 108L, 108M, 112L, 112M, and 112N. I also teach Chemistry 296, a TA training course geared towards our first year graduate students. This constitutes my regular teaching load. In addition, I teach Chemistry 108A and 108B, introductory organic chemistry courses, during the summer sessions and occasionally during the regular academic year. The most difficult part of my job is to reach an audience of over 250 students, the size of my Chemistry 108 classes, and still reassure the students that they are as important as if they were in a class of 20. I encourage my students to contact me by coming to my office hours. Even though I have ample office hours, oftentimes ten or fifteen students come all at once looking for answers to ten or fifteen different problems. It isn't always easy to keep one's balance under those circumstances; however, if I am about to lose my patience, the memory of Dr. Gomez often kicks in and I remind myself of the pitfalls I promised to avoid as a teacher.

What invigorates my teaching is the challenge of teaching a discipline that is constantly changing. Courses such as Chemistry 108L/M and 112L/M/N are an enticement to innovation. Since 1987 I have been working on establishing a solid and appealing program in experimental organic chemistry. One of my goals in establishing this program is the development of experiments with relevance to biology and medicine. One of the main reasons why students choose to major in chemistry is the importance of chemistry in medicine. Many of my students are pre-med students, and thus, experiments with medical connotations are always appealing to them. Most of the experiments in my classes have direct connection to biology or medicine: the synthesis of insect pheromones; the synthesis and analysis of the active ingredients in Tylenol, Excedrin, and BenGay; the synthesis of thyroid hormones; the synthesis and analysis of the active principle in the aroma of violets; the extraction and analysis of essential oils such as spearmint, clove, and anise; the extraction and analysis of vitamins; the extraction of caffeine from tea; the chemistry of steroids; and the chemistry of milk. The experiments are accompanied by introductory notes highlighting their relevance, applications and connection to everyday life.

Another goal I set off to reach is the incorporation of the latest technology in our teaching labs. Computer programs for structure elucidation and data analysis are available to the students through the computer teaching labs. These programs train them in the practical aspects of many of the concepts they learn in lecture and foster their problem-solving skills. In addition, our students routinely analyze their reactions by the same techniques they would use if they were working in leading chemical companies or research labs. These techniques include gas chromatography, high-performance liquid chromatography, infrared and ultraviolet spectroscopies, mass spectrometry, and nuclear magnetic resonance.

Another goal of mine is to foster the concepts of Green Chemistry. Organic chemistry was born in an era when people had little appreciation and respect for the environment. Many reactions performed today are still carried out with costly, toxic, or dangerous chemicals just because "it is the way it's always been done." Today we demand clean air, uncontaminated waters, and unpolluted soils. And thus, it is our responsibility to inspire our students to search for novel answers to old problems. As an educator, I want to bring the subject of Green Chemistry to the forefront. My program already incorporates many of the tenets of Green Chemistry but there is much more work ahead of us. Many of the techniques and well-known reactions that are routinely performed in industry and academia can be modified to render them less harmful without detrimental effects to the outcome.

The publication of Experimental Organic Chemistry was the culmination of many years of intensive work including ten years of teaching at the University of Buenos Aires. During all those years students and teaching assistants alike helped me see the difference between clear and confusing, engaging and boring, sharp and dull. To all of them I am profoundly grateful. With the royalties from the sale of the book at UCSC I have established the C. Fiore Chemistry Prize for undergraduates, in memory of my great-aunt. The first winners will be announced in the Fall 2001.

Writing this statement made me look back to times and places only occasionally revisited. I don't think of Dr. Gomez very often, and as for Students without Teachers. The Crisis in the University, I must confess that I never got the chance to read it and after so many years, I often wondered if it wasn't the creation of my imagination.

For the record, I just checked our Melvyl catalog and the book actually exists. It was written by Harold Taylor in 1969 and is available at the McHenry library under the call number LB2322.T3. I may go and check it out...or perhaps not. Some myths are better left undisturbed